The revolt spread to non-Russian parts of the empire, particularly to Poland, Finland, the Baltic provinces, and Georgia, where it was reinforced by nationalist movements. In some areas the rebellion was met by violent opposition from the antirevolutionary Black Hundreds, who attacked the socialists and staged pogroms against the Jews. But the armed forces joined in on the side of the revolt as welclass="underline" army units situated along the Trans-Siberian Railroad line rioted, and in June the crew of the battleship Potemkin mutinied in the harbour at Odessa.
The government decree on August 6 (August 19) announcing election procedures for the advisory assembly stimulated even more protest, which increased through September. The rebellion reached its peak in October-November. A railroad strike, begun on October 7 (October 20), swiftly developed into a general strike in most of the large cities.
The first workers' council, or soviet, acting as a strike committee, was formed at Ivanovo-Vosnesensk; another, the St. Petersburg soviet, was formed on October 13 (October 26). It initially directed the general strike; but, as social democrats, especially Mensheviks, joined, it assumed the character of a revolutionary government. Similar soviets were organized in Moscow, Odessa, and other cities.
The magnitude of the strike finally convinced Nicholas to act. On the advice of Sergey Yulyevich Witte (Witte, Sergey Yulyevich, Graf), he issued the October Manifesto (October 17 [October 30], 1905), which promised a constitution and the establishment of an elected legislature ( Duma). He also made Witte president of the new Council of Ministers (i.e., prime minister).
These concessions did not meet the radical opposition's demands for an assembly or a republic. The revolutionaries refused to yield; even the liberals declined to participate in Witte's government. But some moderates were satisfied, and many workers, interpreting the October Manifesto as a victory, returned to their jobs. This was enough to break the opposition's coalition and to weaken the St. Petersburg soviet.
At the end of November the government arrested the soviet's chairman, the Menshevik G.S. Khrustalev-Nosar, and on December 3 (December 16) occupied its building and arrested Leon Trotsky (Trotsky, Leon) and others. But in Moscow a new general strike was called; barricades were erected, and there was fighting in the streets before the revolution was put down. In Finland order was restored by removing some unpopular legislation, but special military expeditions were sent to Poland, the Baltic provinces, and Georgia, where the suppression of the rebellions was particularly bloody. By the beginning of 1906 the government had regained control of the Trans-Siberian Railroad and of the army, and the revolution was essentially over.
The uprising failed to replace the tsarist autocracy with a democratic republic or even to convoke a constituent assembly, and most of the revolutionary leaders were placed under arrest. It did, however, force the imperial regime to institute extensive reforms, the most important of which were the Fundamental Laws (1906), which functioned as a constitution, and the creation of the Duma, which fostered the development of legal political activity and parties.
▪ Russia [1905]
Russian Krovavoye Voskresenye
(January 9 [January 22, New Style], 1905), massacre in St. Petersburg, Russia, of peaceful demonstrators marking the beginning of the violent phase of the Russian Revolution of 1905. At the end of the 19th century, industrial workers in Russia had begun to organize; police agents, eager to prevent the Labour Movement from being dominated by revolutionary influences, formed legal labour unions and encouraged the workers to concentrate their energies on making economic gains and to disregard broader social and political problems.
In January 1905 a wave of strikes, partly planned by one of the legal organizations of workers—the Assembly of Russian Workingmen—broke out in St. Petersburg. The leader of the assembly, the priest Georgy Gapon, hoping to present the workers' request for reforms directly to Emperor Nicholas II, arranged a mass demonstration. Having told the authorities of his plan, he led the workers—who were peacefully carrying religious icons, pictures of Nicholas, and petitions citing their grievances and desired reforms—toward the square before the Winter Palace.
Nicholas was not in the city. The chief of the security police—Nicholas's uncle, Grand Duke Vladimir—tried to stop the march and then ordered his police to fire upon the demonstrators. More than 100 marchers were killed, and several hundred were wounded. The massacre was followed by a series of strikes in other cities, peasant uprisings in the country, and mutinies in the armed forces, which seriously threatened the tsarist regime and became known as the Revolution of 1905.
Black Hundreds
▪ Russian history
Russian Chernosotentsy,
reactionary, antirevolutionary, and anti-Semitic groups formed in Russia during and after the Russian Revolution of 1905. The most important of these groups were the League of the Russian People (Soyuz Russkogo Naroda), League of the Archangel Michael (Soyuz Mikhaila Arkhangela), and Council of United Nobility (Soviet Obedinennogo Dvoryanstva). The Black Hundreds were composed primarily of landowners, rich peasants, bureaucrats, merchants, police officials, and clergymen, who supported the principles of Orthodoxy, autocracy, and Russian nationalism. Particularly active from 1906 until 1914, they conducted raids (with the unofficial approval of the government) against various revolutionary groups and pogroms against the Jews.
Stolypin, Pyotr Arkadyevich
▪ Russian statesman
born April 14 [April 2, old style], 1862, Dresden, Saxony
died Sept. 18 [Sept. 5, O.S.], 1911, Kiev
conservative statesman who, after the Russian Revolution of 1905, initiated far-reaching agrarian reforms to improve the legal and economic status of the peasantry as well as the general economy and political stability of imperial Russia.
Appointed governor of the provinces of Grodno (1902) and Saratov (1903), Stolypin demonstrated his concern for improving the welfare of the peasants as well as his firmness and efficiency in subduing their rebellions. Consequently, he gained the favour of Emperor Nicholas II and was appointed minister of the interior in May 1906. In July he was also named president of the Council of Ministers (i.e., prime minister).
Dismissing the first Duma (the elected legislative body created after the 1905 Revolution) on July 22 (July 9, O.S.), 1906, because it demanded a determining voice in the formulation of an agrarian reform program, Stolypin, by executive decree, introduced his own reforms. These gave the peasantry greater freedom in the selection of their representatives to the zemstvo (local government) councils, removed restrictions that had excluded the peasantry from participating in normal judicial procedures, and, most importantly, provided them with an opportunity to leave their communes, acquire private ownership of consolidated plots of land, and transform themselves, according to Stolypin's wish, into a prosperous, stable, and loyally conservative class of farmers (October and November 1906).
Stolypin, however, also instituted a network of courts-martial, which were authorized to try accused rebels and terrorists; within the few months of their existence they used “Stolypin's necktie” (the noose) to execute several thousand defendants; the prime minister gained the enmity of the left wing and much of the centre. He also provoked the opposition of the moderate left when he swiftly dismissed the second Duma (which met from March to June 1907) because it refused to endorse his agrarian reform proposals and when, on the day of its dissolution (June 16 [June 3, O.S.], 1907), he issued—in complete disregard for the recently adopted constitution—a new electoral law reflecting his personal conservatism and Russian nationalism and restricting the franchise of the peasant and worker electorate as well as that of the national minorities.